Les Bleus - non, Les Blancs!

[Jan Klimkowski]

French government declares Nothing to see here, move along....

France coach Laurent Blanc cleared of alleged discrimination

Blanc absolved of blame following government inquiry

'No fact shows Laurent Blanc approves of discrimination'

Angelique Chrisafis in Paris guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 10 May 2011 13.23 BST

The French football coach Laurent Blanc has been cleared by the government of any wrongdoing in the row over race quotas for the national team.

The sports minister, Chantal Jouanno, announced that Blanc was not guilty of racial discrimination after leaked secret recordings revealed that a football federation meeting discussed limiting the number of black and north African players in the national squad.

"No fact shows that Laurent Blanc approves of discriminatory procedures," Jouanno said. But she said the coaches' discussion at a meeting last November was "clumsy and clearly uncalled-for" as well as borderline racist.

Two inquiries one by the French sports ministry and one by the French Football Federation were launched after the Mediapart website revealed that Blanc and other officials had discussed introducing quotas on the number of dual-nationality players at youth training academies.

Blanc is not totally in the clear until the results of the second inquiry by the football federation are released this afternoon.

Jouanno said Blanc "was attending this kind of meeting for the very first time. He did not have any project [to limit the number of black and Arab players], no fixed opinion." She concluded that no quota system for players was put in place so the law against racial discrimination had not been broken.

Blanc had been criticised by former teammates in the multicultural 1998 World Cup-winning France side but others such as then captain Didier Deschamps, as well as influential figure Zinedine Zidane, have backed Blanc to stay on.